Ask your NSW MP to support human composting legislation… here’s how
The NSW Parliament has a lower house, the Legislative Assembly, and an upper house, The Legislative Council. Your state MP represents your state electorate in the Legislative Assembly. You can find out who your MP is and how to contact them at their electoral office here. (Tick Legislative Assembly box.) They might provide a direct email address or you might have to fill in an online form from their parliamentary website.
Upper House members can be located here. (Tick Legislative Council box.) You could write to them individually or cc them on the email to your MP. We’ll need their votes as well to ensure the bill is passed into law once it gets through the Lower House.
The legislation you are asking them to support is the Public Health Legislation Amendment (Natural Organic Reduction) Bill 2026.
You can write a short letter/email or a longer one, but whatever length, make it personal to you and/or your family, and stress that it is an option you would prefer instead of the current methods of burial or cremation.
Below is an example of a great email that is used with the permission of its author, Maryanne, from Swansea in the Hunter region of NSW. Thanks to her for this inspiring letter of support.
Re: Natural Organic Reduction Bill
Dear Mr Piper,
Last night I attended a film on human body composting for the Natural Organic Reduction Bill at NSW Parliament House.
For me it is a very wonderful alternative option to be offered for the end of life ritual and grieving process of loved ones:
1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – It aligns with these core tenets of sustainability through
a. Reduce: the scale that this option offers for the reduction of coffins, land, formaldehyde and energy use is truly eye opening and a positive step in the direction of the future for this industry. So many other industries are taking key steps in this direction and I think this is a no-brainer step that the funeral industry in Australia can take.
b. Reuse: the reuse of the composting vessels as opposed to a single coffin
c. Recycle: the recycling of human remains for use in gardens or forests is quietly genius. I am moved by the vision of ‘burial forests’ as they have done in Germany as a way to go and visit, commune with, memorialise, remember your loved one – knowing what we know about the power of nature to revive and recreate human beings who are alive. We have a “Tiny Forest” in Lake Macquarie – I would love to see a “Burial Forest” – as this answers the one question that I have not been able to confidently write down – where to lay me to rest!
2. Innovation:
a. Ritual: the realm of the ritual that offers in the grieving and saying goodbye to a loved one in a way that aligns with and supports the human experience at this time is truly innovative. Particularly the 3 month timeframe of the full composting process till loved ones receive the soil to do something – the supportive ‘action’ as part of the moving forward step. People can do it all at once or in steps – such as marking anniversaries by potting a new plant.
I had already told my sons I wanted to be buried, however this option, whilst at first freaked me out a bit – having had time to think about it, is a far superior option for all the above reasons and aligns with my ‘akin to nature and humaness’ values of how I have lived my life.
I thank you for your serious consideration of this Bill and I sincerely request and hope you support it.
Kind regards and with thanks,
Maryanne (Last name withheld)
Swansea
